Chapter Text
The first time Alex met his brother was in 1966. He was hitchhiking through Pennsylvania on his way to boot camp. He’d just been drafted.
Scott wasn’t two years old. Alex was twenty-three—a college dropout by then, and a chain smoker. He hadn’t seen his father in ten years, not since the man had left his mother, and she was dead now. His father had a new wife and a new son. The three of them were living in a tract home outside of Lancaster.
His father had offered him a beer and cigar. “Can’t believe you got yourself drafted,” he said, and the way he said it—tossed-off and unpracticed—that told Alex he didn’t really care. Maybe it would be best if Alex went off to Vietnam and got killed, taking with him the evidence of a previous family, the blond hair and good looks of a woman done wrong. “Couldn’t you get a—what do they call it—deferment?”
Alex shrugged and said, “It’s too late now.”
His father’s new wife—Scott’s mother—was nice to him, nicer than anyone had been in a long time. She was young, much too young for their father, and Alex wanted to tell her, He’s a monster. You should leave.
She had a camera. “I want you boys to be in the picture together,” she said, motioning to the toddler who clung to the edge of the sofa and drooled softly, tested his knees by bouncing up and down.
Alex just stared at Scott.
“Well goddammit,” his father said. “Pick him up.”
Alex did as he was told.
He wouldn’t see this photograph until years and years later. In it he held Scott like a bundle of dirty wet clothes. Scott’s arms were outstretched and his face tilted back to try to see Alex. Alex held the kid in front of his chest and stared into the camera. He did not smile.
Now it was 1979. Alex sat in a restaurant with Raven. He took the photograph out of his shirt pocket slid it across the table.
“Jesus Christ,” she said. She picked it up. “Charles gave you this?”
“He did. The boy. My brother. Scott.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Charles pulled him out of some jam and brought him to the school. Guess he’s been in and out of foster homes half his life. Real sordid shit, too. So the last time I’m in town, Charles calls me up, lays all this on me. He’s ecstatic. Says he’s found my long lost brother. Wants me to come meet him. My brother, who’s had this picture on him all these years.”
Raven set the picture down and looked at Alex. “Holy shit, Alex.” She sat back and studied him. “Leave it to Charles.”
“I know.”
“I take it this wasn’t a joyous family reunion?”
Alex shrugged. He couldn’t do anything but shrug. He didn’t want to go into it.
Raven studied the picture. “At least he’s cute as a button.”
“He doesn’t look like that now. He’s fifteen.”
“I was kidding.”
“He’s fifteen.” He tried not to sigh, but it was too late. Raven looked like she wanted to grab his hand. “He’s miserable. A miserable fucking teenager. He says he doesn’t blame me, though. He doesn’t blame me not trying to track him down, for leaving him to rot in foster homes all those years after his mom and our dad died.”
“Oh, Alex.”
“Then he said, ‘Jesus. You’re so old. You’re old enough to be my fucking father.’”
Raven picked up the picture again. “You’re not that old. Or you don’t look it, anyway. You look the same as you did when we first met.”
***
They did this. They got together in big cities when he was on assignment with the Pentagon and she was doing whatever the fuck it was that she did. (He didn’t really ask.) They got together for dinner and talked. Sometimes they reminisced. Sometimes they gossiped about other mutants (Charles mostly).
Most of the time, though, their visits were more purposeful. They traded information. He knew that she didn’t really respect what he did—that he worked for the same government that had killed Sean—but she kept quiet about it and never complained when he provided her with classified information. And he never asked where she got the names and places and locations that he never would have figured out on his own.
They were good friends, but their relationship was pure commerce.
They stood outside on North Capitol, he on the street and she teetering on the curb. She also looked the same as she had when they met, and perfectly disguised now as well, her blond waves falling in front of her shoulders. He’d kissed her once a few years ago, impulsively. She’d kissed him back. And then he’d kissed her harder. And then she had pulled back. Looked at him. He hadn’t asked her to change to herself, to her real skin, and he sort of didn’t want her to. He loved her blond, and she must have sensed this. And without even acknowledging that the moment had passed, they withdrew from one another and never spoke of it again.
“So are you going back to see the little guy?” she asked, her hands in her pockets and heels rocking back and forth on the curb.
“Probably in a few weeks.”
“You didn’t say anything, so I feel bad for prying. But I assume he’s like us? Like you? I guess he is, or why else would Charles have even found him?”
He leaned close to her so that their faces were almost touching. “The power’s in his eyes.”
“No shit.”
“He has to wear special glasses. Without them he pretty much lays waste to anything he looks at.”
She looked at him. He wondered if he’d said too much.
“Well,” she said, “Charles must love to see you two back together. He’s all about family.”
“All about it.”
“I bet he couldn’t be prouder.”
Alex wanted the conversation to be over. “I guess you’re right,” he said.
***
When Alex got drafted, Charles cried. He blamed Alex. “How could you let this happen?” he said. He sat in his wheelchair and sobbed. Then he threw the half-empty bottle of vodka he’d been drinking at the corner of his office. It didn’t break but spilled everywhere, and that’s when Alex knew that Charles wasn’t going to forgive him easily.
It sort of was Alex’s fault. He’d flunked out of college. And that was all the draft board needed. It didn’t matter that he had a juvenile record. It didn’t even matter that he was a mutant. They fucking needed more bodies on the ground in Vietnam.
“All right, we’ll figure this out,” Charles said once he calmed down, wiping his eyes on the back of his sleeve and wheeling himself to the corner of the room to get the bottle he’d just thrown. “I’ll make some calls. I’ll get you out of this.”
Alex knew that Charles didn’t have anyone to call. By that time his contacts had moved on or disappeared. Too many years in Westchester—too many years running a small out-of-the-way school and coming to terms with the loss of his legs—had made him irrelevant.
“I’m not putting acid in my eyes or ears or whatever.”
“You’re going back to college.”
“I’m going to Vietnam.”
“You’re not going to Vietnam!” He spun in his chair. “We’ll send you—we’ll send you to Canada.”
Alex didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Charles knew there was no fucking way he was running to Canada.
“Couldn’t you have just tried,” Charles said. “Couldn’t you have just tried at school? You’re not a fucking idiot, Alex.”
“School just wasn’t my gig.”
“You could have made it your gig. But you didn’t. And if you had just tried, now you wouldn’t be—you wouldn’t—” Charles spun away from Alex. Then he wheeled himself to the door to his study, opened it and went out into the hallway.
Alex sat down in a chair.
Eighteen seconds later, Hank appeared in the study. He closed the door over.
In those days Hank was in this in-between point. Still experimenting with his serum, he was sort of figuring it out, and halfway there. So sometimes he’d be the blue man, and other times he’d look normal. Sometimes part of him would be blue—his hands, for instance—while his face would be okay. At this moment he looked normal. He looked like himself.
But he also looked worried.
“You heard that?” Alex asked.
“Everyone heard that.”
Alex shrugged.
“It’s not about you,” Hank said. “Really, it’s not. He’s angry because my serum won’t take. And Sam Guthrie got called up the other day. Charles feels powerless.”
“Sam?”
“Like I said, not about you.”
Alex knew a line of bullshit when he heard one.
“Did you tell Sean yet?” Hank asked.
“No.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t.”
Sean was at UConn, and unlike Alex he was good at school. He was halfway through his sophomore year, making A’s and loving college. Alex suspected that he had a girlfriend. “I won’t say anything.”
Hank opened the door and disappeared for a moment. When he came back he had a towel. He bent over and started wiping up the vodka.
“You shouldn’t do that,” Alex said.
Hank looked up. “Who else would do it?”
Alex didn’t say anything to Sean. But because everyone in the school heard that Alex had been drafted, Sean heard too. Paige Guthrie called him at UConn. The next day he was back in Westchester County. He didn’t have a car so he had to hitchhike the whole way.
“I’m going with you,” he told Alex. They were alone, standing in the courtyard. Smoking together. “I’m signing up.”
“Don’t be retarded,” Alex said.
Sean tossed his cigarette on the ground, turned to Alex and grabbed his face. Held his head between his hands. “You don’t have to go alone. You’re not alone. You’re not doing this alone.”
“Oh Jesus,” Alex said, but he didn’t wrench away. He didn’t even pull Sean’s hands away from his face. Instead he covered Sean’s hands with his own.
“I mean it,” Sean said, bringing Alex’s face close to his so their foreheads touched.
And Alex wondered when Sean had gotten good at this—at knowing what to say and how to comfort him. He let go of Sean’s hands and reached for his shoulders.
Sean let go of his face wrapped his arms around him. He squeezed him so hard he almost lifted off the ground. And Alex let him. “You’re not that tough,” Sean said quietly. “You think you’re so fucking tough. But I know better.”
Alex drew in his breath and held it, trying not to cry but failing anyway. He couldn’t believe how strong Sean had gotten—how much taller and smarter and more sure of himself and more aware. Just three years ago they’d barely known how to dress themselves. And Sean so much was younger back then. He had been just a boy.
“I’m not letting you sign up,” Alex said, crying against Sean’s shoulder. “That would be stupidest thing I ever did in my life.”
“It’s not your life,” Sean said. “Plus, I figure that I’m going to get drafted anyway. Joining up now means I have more control. You enlist, you maybe get a deal, I heard. You get a better assignment. You don’t just end up on a gunboat floating down the Mekong Delta. If I get to be someone in the army, I could protect you better.”
“You’re not dropping out of school,” Alex said, pulling back from Sean and wiping his eyes. He tried to catch his breath. “It’s for you. It was meant for you.”
“‘Meant for me’? That sounds like some Charles Xavier bull fucking crud. What do I have to tell you to convince you that it’s not a question? We’re brothers, Alex. I love you. And we’ll survive over there. We’ll be home by next summer. Erik didn’t give us all that Mossad training to let it go to waste.” He tried to laugh. “In fact, I bet boot camp will be nothing compared to that time Erik hogtied us and threw us into the middle of the lake. Remember that? Fucking asshole.”
“I’m not letting you do this.”
“It’s not up to you.”
“Charles’ll have a fucking conniption. He’ll kill me. He’ll kill both of us.”
“He’ll get over it. Alex. Alex.”
Alex hadn’t even noticed that he was sobbing so relentlessly he was starting to hyperventilate. He couldn’t breathe normally.
“I’m doing this because I want to,” Sean said, and he threw his arms around Alex again, his hands squeezing Alex’s shoulders hard enough to leave a bruise. “Charles can’t stop me. Hank can’t stop me. You can’t stop me.” He pulled away and took Alex by the arm. “C’mon. C’mon inside. Back to our old room, remember? Charles still hasn’t gotten anyone to fill it. And you need a drink. I know where Hank keeps his stash.”
Up in their old room, Alex sank onto the bed. Sean disappeared for a minute. He came back with a bottle of Jack Daniels. “Just drink it,” Sean said. “And breathe.”
Alex took several hard swigs and set the bottle on the nightstand. Then he wiped his eyes with his sweater and lay down on the bed, curled on his side. In a few minutes Sean lay down beside him, facing his back, and draped one arm across his body.
“You’ll be okay,” Sean said. “You’ll be totally fine. You just need a little time. By tomorrow this whole thing’ll seem normal. Then the day after that even more normal. But you’ll be fine, I promise. We’ll both be fine.”
Alex turned his head to look at Sean.
“Oh honey, don’t,” Sean said. “You look at me that way, you bum me out.”
“How can you be so sure this’ll be okay?” Alex said, and he wondered how things had gone this way—how Sean had become the strong one and he was now the big blubbering baby. Back when all the terrible shit had happened—when Darwin had died and Angel and Raven had run off and Erik had turned dirty and Charles had lost his legs—Alex had taken it in stride. And Sean had been a real mess, puking and crying at night, drinking himself stupid, falling in the shower when he was drunk. Or hyperventilating when he had a flashback.
Charles was pretty much useless during all that. Alex couldn’t fault him—he’d just lost his legs for crissakes, and his best friend and sister—so Alex just stepped up and did what he could. And then Charles did find his footing. Put the school together. Rebuilt Cerebro with Hank. But now he seemed to have regressed. He was drinking too much, and whatever optimism he’d scraped together was gone, probably because Raven never came back to him.
Now Sean gripped his shoulder and shook it gently. “After what we went through in Cuba? Vietnam’ll be a fucking cakewalk.”
Alex rolled over and leaned into Sean. He wanted to kiss Sean then, and Sean to kiss him. The way they used to kiss. Back before Alex went to college. Back in those days they’d messed a bit—nothing to write home about. Both of them had these girls they went with, Paige for Sean and a town girl for Alex. When Alex and Sean fooled around with each they told themselves it was just practice, or blowing off steam.
He also wanted to tell Sean a lot of other things right then—that his pops had written him a letter. The fucker had a whole new family, a wife and a kid. After what he’d done to Alex’s mother, it hardly seemed fair. But the moment already seemed too heavy. Alex didn’t know how to begin.
And there were other things he wanted to talk about too. Bigger, achier things. He wondered what they’d do when they were finished with the war. He doubted either of them would go back to college. Or go live with Charles. Charles was such a drag by then, moody and angry.
Alex had a vision of him and Sean living in some studio apartment in New York above a bar. Sean could play the piano, and maybe he could make a living at it. He could paint too. He had a lot of gifts. Alex couldn’t do anything like that. He’d just work where he could. He’d move rich people’s furniture around. Or deliver laundry. But the thought of this life they might have—this life together—was a comforting thing. And Alex wanted to tell Sean all about it. He wanted to say things like, “I can’t stand the times that we’re apart,” or “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” Real mushy shit like that. No, better he didn’t say it. Better he just let himself drift off to sleep. Better for everyone involved.
Two weeks later, Alex left for boot camp. He made Sean promise to finish out his semester—that was the deal they made. So when the spring came, Sean enlisted. He wrote Alex about it. Alex was still stateside, and Sean was going to Massachusetts.
Sean never made it to Vietnam. He disappeared from basic training one night that summer, and the news didn’t reach Alex until much later. He was already in Vietnam by then, and there was nothing he could do. A letter came from Hank. Hank wrote that Charles had looked—he’d looked everywhere. (It wasn’t until years later that Alex learned that Charles had been experimenting Hank’s serum then, and that it had started to take. When Sean went missing, Charles’s powers were fading in and out.)
Alex was trapped in Vietnam then—trapped for six and a half long years. Most kids stayed a year; but most kids weren’t mutants. With mutants, there were no hard and fast rules, and Alex was locked in until the war’s end.
Sean was labelled a deserter by the US Army—a traitor and a coward. No one cared about him; no one looked. But Alex knew. Knew that something terrible had happened, and that Sean was dead. He just hoped it had been quick. He knew there were a million things that could happen to a mutant, a million ways you could get lost or erased or just plain gone.